[Elecraft] April 6th GPS Reset

[Robert Cunnings]

There is a warning on the TomTom site - and today I received an email from
them regarding an older Garmin Etrex unit I own. It said in brief:
=======================
Due to the upcoming WNRO on 6 April 2019, the performance of your device 
will be impacted.

While we no longer offer content and service updates for your device, we 
have made an update available that addresses the GPS Week Number Rollover 
(WNRO).

TO UPDATE: Connect your device to your computer. Click the 'update now' 
button for instructions​ on how to update your device.
=======================
The message included the serial number of my device, so I suppose I must 
have registered it after purchasing it. The warning page is here:

https://www.tomtom.com/en_us/updates/

Bob NW8L

On Wed, 3 Apr 2019, na5n at zianet.com wrote:

> Fred Jensen writes:
>
>> Eventually, the 10-bit register holding the week number will overflow and 
>> reset to zero. That's all that's happening, it happens every 1,024 weeks, 
>> the first was in Aug 1999.
>
> The GPS reset has been the source of hysteria in various circles, including 
> exhaustive discussions on the various private pilot and drone forums, since 
> most aircraft and drones use GPS for real time positioning and navigation 
> while in flight.
>
> In short, when this happened in 1999, changes were made to lengthen the roll 
> over period to beyond our lifetime.  The April 6 rollover only effects older 
> GPS devices with the 10-bit registers.  Basically, every GPS embedded device 
> made in the last 10-15 years or so will not be affected - only the first 
> generation devices.
>
> There are absolutely no warnings or cautions on the websites for Garmin, 
> Magellan, or Trimble showing it is a non-issue for their GPS devices - not 
> even mentioned.  The FAA has a list of the very few GPS devices used in older 
> private aircraft that could be effected, only if in flight when the rollover 
> occurs.  With 10,000+ people in the air at any moment, there would be a huge 
> air of caution by the FAA and airlines if the rollover had any chance of 
> effecting the GPS devices now in use.  In this case, "Silence is golden."
>
> 73, Paul NA5N
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